Travel Album: China and Japan, early 20th century, Album of 49 collodion prints and 178 gelatin silver prints, photos: 3 1/4 in. x 4 3/4 in. (8.3 cm x 12.1 cm); page: 10 7/8 in. x 13 3/4 in. (27.6 cm x 34.9 cm), Gift of Jerome Hanauer 1989.66.142
Through the Eyes of a Collector: A Travel Album’s Photographic Voyage
Curated by Alexandra Sence, 2022 Liliane Pingoud Soriano '49 Curatorial Fellow
Introduction
For centuries, people have kept collections of art in albums. After photography arrived in the nineteenth century, albums became popular for storing photos. This particular album, housed in the Davis Museum's collection, is a souvenir album filled with travel memories from China and Japan. It holds 229 photographs, spread across 54 unlabeled and unnumbered pages. Each page features between four and six photos, with some having captions written on the back. While we don't know the collector's name, clues hidden within the album offer a glimpse into their identity.
The photos themselves provide hints about when the album was created. For instance, one picture shows men with long braids, a hairstyle common during China's Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). After the fall of the Qing and the rise of the Republic of China (1912-1949), many men cut their braids. This suggests the photograph was likely taken around 1900, towards the end of the Qing Dynasty. The album's cover, embroidered with "Photographs" in gold lettering, reflects a style popular in the early twentieth-century United States. A label on the front cover reveals the maker as Housh Co., a Boston-based company. This evidence points towards the collector possibly residing in Boston and traveling to Asia sometime in the early 1900s.
The album sparks curiosity about the person behind it. Who collected these photos, and what motivated them? Recent research suggests a possible owner: American geologist Noah Fields Drake (1864-1945). Drake worked for the Department of Geology and Mining at the University of Tianjin, China, from 1898 to 1911 while teaching and researching coal deposits. The album's focus on mining aligns with Drake's profession. Furthermore, Drake's mining surveys along the Hankow-Canton railway line in 1904 could explain the abundance of photographs taken in Hunan province.